


When Your Car Crash Comes Don't be Misled

by hauntedd



Category: You're The Worst (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 02:23:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8950075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedd/pseuds/hauntedd
Summary: Jimmy reflects on his actions during the season 3 finale, with a little help from his friends.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunshinemachine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinemachine/gifts).



Jimmy doesn’t see it coming.

The lights of Los Angeles blur together and the erratic spinning of thought after thought within his brain are simply too much to bear as the reality of what he’s done has sunk in. 

Gretchen with her gleeful disbelief as he bent down on one knee. Her face alight with the prospect of forever, or whatever the fuck romantic notion one fills themselves with when death and destruction bring them such joy. The tears and the rushed _yes, yes, oh yes_ , normally accompanied by sex, escaping her pretty little mouth. It’s all so disgustingly perfect and the future is laid out in front of them, all he has to do is take it.

That is, of course, until her mouth shifts and gives way to that wretched word. F—

“Fuck.”

Headlights and a horn pull his attention away just as the scraping of metal on metal becomes inevitable and his world explodes along with the glass on the dashboard and he’s drowned in the whiteness of airbags and the prospect of the unknown.

~*~

Jimmy jerks underneath his covers, the shades of a nightmare creeping at the edges of his memory. He spins over to the other side of his bed, which is mercifully empty. There’s no way to explain the disaster of a dream he’s had to Gretchen, who will find both offense and humor in the retelling, and he’s not certain whether which will be in greater abundance. But it seems so real and the ringing in his ears is only getting louder and more off key by the second.

No, wait, scratch that. Is that _singing_ in his bloody shower? Gretchen doesn’t sing—a point in her favor, that. She also doesn’t wash her legs, which negates it.

His brow furrows, trying to place where he’s heard that voice before. Is it—no. The mere thought chills him to the core, and yet Jimmy’s curiosity gets the better of him. It always does.

His feet pad against the floor as he makes his way toward the bathroom, full of steam, and filled with the oppressive noise of Taylor Swift, if Taylor Swift were a bevy of cats in heat instead of a talentless attention whore. He knows this voice. It’s Becca. Naked. In his shower. 

“What in the hell are you doing in my shower?”

The water turns off and Becca storms out, water glistening off her skin. Jimmy takes a moment to appraise her body, the curvature of her ass, the fullness of her breasts, and shrugs. Gretchen’s an upgrade. A major one, at that.

“Showering, Jimmy. It’s a thing that people do.”

“Do you wash your legs?” The question comes unprompted, but Jimmy feels it’s the only opportunity he’ll have to discover if this peculiarity is a constant in the woman he dates or if it’s exclusively a Gretchen trait.

“Excuse me?”

“In the shower. Do you wash your legs?”

“What the hell? Is this another one of your existential crises?” Becca asks, her hands reaching for the towel, covering her body with the threadbare fabric. “Of course I wash my legs – wait. Do you not wash your legs? What the fuck, Jimmy!”

“ _I_ do, but Gretchen doesn’t.”

“Is that one of your weird fetishes? God, you two need better hobbies.”

“Oh, like your ridiculous podcast with Vernon is any better? Perhaps we’ll try out financial domination next. The only problem is, between your husband and Fat Lindsay, your family has a monopoly on all the humiliation kinks.”

“There’s always bukkake, although Gretchen doesn’t have the appropriate equipment.” Becca says, shrugging on a robe. It unnerves him, how willing she is to be naked around him, and how she sounds like a fun-house mirror version of herself.

“How in the world do you know about bukkake?” Jimmy asks, leaning against the tile, slightly aroused at the thought of the not-so virginal new mother knowing these things.

“When Vernon had his little… indiscretion, I was forced to do my research. But that’s not the question you should be asking me.”

“Oh really? Then what bloody question should I be asking the wise Becca Barbara?” The sarcasm drips off every word. Becca is several things, only a few of them good, but wise has never been one of them.

Although compared to her sister, she’s a MENSA member.

“Why I’m here, maybe?”

“Actually, I asked you that. You didn’t answer.”

“No, you asked me why I was in your _shower_ ,” Becca snaps, pointing a finger at him and wagging it to drive home her point. 

Jimmy swats her hand away and ignores the angry look painted across her face. “Are you actually arguing over semantics while barging into my home uninvited?”

Becca fixes him with a glare, one that would have been cutting in another time, back before Gretchen when he still thought Becca was his future and not a footnote in the story of his memoirs. Perhaps a chapter, if he’s feeling generous. Which Jimmy certainly is not at this particular moment.

“I’m here, Jimmy, because you fucked up. And while normally I’d relish in the latest dumpster fire that is your life, I’m not human which means I can’t.”

“Well, I believe we both knew that. The debate is on what type of hell beast you truly are. Succubus? Soul sucking vampire? I have a list prepared. I can go get it.”

“No, idiot. I’m a figment of your imagination.”

Jimmy bursts into laughter at that, so loud it echoes and sounds remarkably like a laugh track on a bland sitcom. It unnerves him and he stares at Becca in stunned disbelief. His home doesn’t echo, and even if it did, Becca wouldn’t be milling around inside. Perhaps there’s something to this ridiculous explanation after all. Not that he would ever admit it to Becca of all people.

“You? A figment of my imagination? Why in the hell would I imagine you, of all people?”

“Oh, Jimmy. You know why. But just like when we were dating, you’re making me do all the work,” Becca says, propping herself onto the countertop. “You see, Jimmy. It’s like A Christmas Story. I’m your ghost of Christmas Past.”

Wait. Did she just confuse the movie with the obnoxious child and the bb gun with Charles Dickens? 

“Carol. You mean A Christmas Carol.”

“Whatever.”

“Are you certain your sister’s lack of brain cells isn’t genetic? You sound exactly like Lindsay. Christmas past. It’s July for heaven’s sake!”

“This is your existential crisis, not mine. I mean, really. Bailing on Gretchen moments after proposing. That’s low, even for you.”

Jimmy recoils at the accusation. She doesn’t know what it was like, the suffocating all-consuming doom swallowing him whole, slowly dying from the inside out in a race toward normalcy. Gretchen will thank him, eventually, for saving her from the slow death of complacency. “As if your sham of a marriage isn’t evidence enough that this experiment we call coupling simply doesn’t work? You know what? She should be grateful I left when I did.”

“Stop. Just stop. I don’t care what bullshit you’re using to convince yourself you’re right. I’m just here to remind you of your past and how terrible it was in the hope that you grow up.” Becca says, wine glass now inexplicably in her hand and her belly swollen like it had been only weeks earlier, at the most stuffed and sweaty part of her pregnancy. It’s repulsive.

“Well, then. Consider me reminded. Gretchen may not have your tits, but she certainly looks far better naked than you were at your peak,” Jimmy spits and heads for the door.

“So you’re going to try and fix this?”

“Hell no. There’s nothing in need of fixing. I pulled the emergency brake just before we both careened off a cliff.”

His hand grips the door knob and he moves to turn it, ready to escape whatever nonsense this is for a better dream. Perhaps one with a threesome featuring his maths teacher from eleventh year. Ahh, Miss Morrison and her full milky breasts. A true highlight of his adolescence.

“Wait!” Becca screams and Jimmy turns toward her against his better judgment. “You haven’t learned anything! I have all of our old fights ready to view.”

“Oh, I think I’ve learned enough. Your mere presence is enough to remind me why we were horrible together.”

With that, Jimmy turns the knob and steps into the abyss.

~*~

Instead of Miss Morrison’s cleavage, Jimmy winds up at the Jillian abode, complete with Lindsay in the middle of it. He supposes if he’s stuck here she’s more tolerable than Paul, although neither is enjoyable. 

So it will be all the staves, then. And yet he’s chosen Lindsay to serve as the present instead of Edgar—proving his theory that Edgar is his Cameron to be true once and for all.

“Oh my god, Jimmy! You’re like, way early.” Lindsay greets him in her two sizes too small sundress. This must be purgatory, stuck with Becca and now Lindsay, two of the most insufferable people he’s ever met.

Jimmy appraises the surroundings. Lindsay behind the kitchen counter, chocolate syrup and pancake batter splattered all over the place, remnants of what he’s sure had been a war between the halfwit and a KitchenAid mixer. “I didn’t know they kept appointments in hell.”

Lindsay leaves the counter and steps toward him, her hips swaying with every step. His eyes are drawn by the glint of a knife in her hand, dripping with blood. Ah, right. From when she’d stabbed Paul. 

“But we’re not in hell.”

“Aren’t we? First your sister, now you—“

“Gross. You left Gretch at the alter and thought of _Becca_?” Lindsay accuses, her arms akimbo, the knife dangling dangerously from her palm. Could she possibly stab him next? 

“There wasn’t an altar. I proposed. That’s it.” 

“Same difference.” Lindsay shrugs, the murderous look in her eye shifting back to the bovine expression that she typically wears.

“No, it’s not, actually. One implies the intent to begin a betrothal or an engagement. The other occurs at the ceremony.”

“You abandoned her. You left my best friend!” She stomps her foot for emphasis, and a half-hearted thud comes through the floorboards in a pathetic attempt to drive home her point, if she has one. “You left her in the Hollywood Hills without a way home like a lost little puppy—“

“There’s Uber. And Gretchen can fend for herself.”

Lindsay lunges toward him, knife at the ready, and he jumps back at her approach. Perhaps the lackwit is willing to kill him after all. His feet hit a chair and Jimmy tumbles backward, into a wall. She presses her advantage, slamming her free palm against the drywall and effectively pinning him in place.

“I’m not finished,” Lindsay snaps, accenting every word as she holds the knife against his throat. Her breath smells of Cheetos and boxed wine and he forces himself to breathe through his mouth to avoid the brunt of it.

“Well, go on then.” Jimmy says, as if he has a choice in the matter.

Lindsay presses the knife into his flesh. Not too hard, just enough to draw blood. He has the good sense not to say anything—he’s not certain enough as to what happens when you’re murdered in your own dreams to challenge her further. 

“As I was saying, Gretch was getting her shit together. Adulting. And then you took a big crap on that because your man pain got in the way.”

“That’s not entirely accurate.”

“Oh. It is, Jimmy. It is.” Lindsay bobs her head and pulls the knife back. “You think you’re soo smart with your fancy books and big words, but you’re a big dumb-dumb like me.”

“My novel has been reviewed positively by the New York Times. Although you may never have heard of that publication because the articles are written for an audience with an intellect that’s higher than a third-grade reading level.” He fixes Lindsay with a glare. “I am most certainly the complete opposite of what you are.”

“Then why’d you fuck up your entire relationship the second Gretch called you a family?” Lindsay asks, her voice shifting to a tone even more juvenile than the one she usually employs on the word _family_ as if she doesn’t understand the concept. Something they have in common, as much as it pains him to admit it. “You know, I had a family once. Now, an abobo later, I’m a free woman. So I know what I’m talking about here.”

“Do you really? From the look of it, it seems that you’re attempting to convince me of what I already know—I did the right thing.”

“Even you’re not that stupid, Jimmy. And you’re pretty stupid when it comes to relationships.”

“Says the woman who let her husband stick his penis in a gilded cage.”

“His body, his choice.”

Jimmy shrugs. She’s not wrong there, although it is perhaps the most inane misuse of the abortion rights sentiment he's ever heard.

Lindsay waves her hand in the air, in what he thinks is an attempt to dismiss whatever objection she assumes he must have to her statement. “Besides. I know a lot about relationships. Good ones, bad ones—I’m like an expert. And if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to fool Paul into watching me sleep with other dudes.”

“Right. Because cuckholdry is the foundation of a solid coupling.”

“You’re here, aren’t you?” Lindsay asks, missing the insult behind his words as she heads back behind the counter, humming all along the way. 

“Yes, but _why_.” Jimmy asks, trying to make sense of it all. The faint scent of something burning accents the process while Lindsay makes her way to the oven, retrieving the charred mess that used to be a turkey. Or a chicken. Possibly a roast. “Out of all of the billions of people on earth, why are you, a mere simpleton, what my subconscious considers the Ghost of Christmas Present?”

Lindsay slams the pan with the thoroughly destroyed meat inside it down against the burners and turns back toward him, eyes alight with childlike fascination. “Oooh, presents? I _love_ presents.” 

“Present, idiot. As in the period of time now occurring. Not gifts.”

“Boo. Not fair.”

“Be that as it may, you’re here to teach me a lesson that I’ll thoroughly ignore, much like your sister’s. The Cottumaccio Sisters and their complete lack of wisdom, both here to serve as sirens and mislead me down a path toward thinking what I did was wrong, when it was not.”

“That’s a lot of words for someone who doesn’t feel guilty.”

“Guilty? Why would I feel guilty?”

“You tell me. Your imagination dragged you here, you must be feeling it somewhere deep inside.”

“I _don’t_! Gretchen always said that we could bail at any time. And this, right here, is me bailing. I chose to save us both. I did that. Me.” 

“You sure about that?” Lindsay asks and for the first time he’s truly unsure of his decision. He shakes it off immediately, refusing to yield to the farce of this fantasy. “Gretch went catatonic over not calling her Grandmother. What do you think this’ll do to her?”

“She’s better! She went to therapy and developed moderately decent heckles for her psychologist. She’ll be fine.”

“Eventually, yeah. Maybe. But you’ll forever be Jimmy the dude who bailed after proposing and not Jimmy: dude who built a blanket fort.”

“You know about that, do you?” Jimmy frowns as he processes his question. Of course she knows about that. None of this is real, despite his inability to stop this nonsense from hurdling towards its inevitable conclusion.

“I know _everything_ Jimmy. It’s what I do.”

“Right, well, we both know that’s a lie. You’re likely legally incompetent.”

“Not boring stuff that nobody cares about. Gretchen stuff. I’m like an expert,” Lindsay huffs. “You know, I’ve supported this thing you two have. I told her to do butt stuff to keep your relationship spicy. Paul never did butt stuff. And I have a really great ass.”

Lindsay turns and bends over to drive home the point. Jimmy scrunches up his face in disgust, which he masks well before she faces him again.

“Enlighten me, then. What does the amount of anal have to do with anything?”

“Anal says I love you. I mean, my clambake is an all you can eat buffer.”

“Buffet.”

“Exactly. But my butt? That’s exclusive. Invite only.” Lindsay pauses, likely trying to get back to the point she’s failing to make. “Anyway. Now that I ditched Paul, I could really use Gretch back—my Gretch, the fun single one who drinks away her problems and does blow off guys’ dicks.”

“When, exactly, did she do that? And, more importantly, why am I only hearing about this _now_.”

“Dunno and Kappa Sig sophomore year. It was really hot, and then I got Eiffel Towered. Best. Night. Ever.” Lindsay smirks, remembering the experience, or what little fragments of memory that she has left. “But we’re old now and she goes to _therapy_. I was okay with that when you were being nice to her. And then you got scared and decided to run away. Like a baby.”

“I wasn’t scared.”

“Right, and I totally loved Paul.” Lindsay laughs, raking a hand through her hair. “Look, real talk, I know a lot about failed relationships. And what you and Gretch had wasn’t until you went and fucked it all up. So why’d you do it?”

“Which part? Proposing or leaving?”

“Both.”

“I asked because I hate everyone else and it felt right,” Jimmy starts, shifting his weight from side to side. “And—“ 

The heavy weight of feet draw Jimmy’s attention away from Lindsay and he catches Edgar in the entryway. “Edgar! What’re you doing here? I thought it was one ghost per period and you’re clearly the ghost of my future.”

“Uh, well, it was supposed to be, but someone decided she couldn’t share, so.”

“Whatever, I always wanted to be Oprah.”

“You’re don’t have enough melanin for that. Though the large history of dieting failures is something you both share,” Jimmy says, then turns his attention to Edgar. “So, out with it. What tragic lesson are you meant to share? A vision of my great success and no one to share it with, perhaps? The collective misery of my extended family when I continue to reject their attempts at reconciliation? I’ll spare you, Edgar. There is nothing that you or anyone else can do to convince me that I’m wrong.”

“Gretchen’s happy in the future.”

“See! She’s happy! We’ve moved past this episode and everyone wins. Isn’t that right, Lindsay?”

“No, Jimmy. She’s happy with someone else—an investment banker named Blake,” Edgar answers for her. "They have two kids, Wyatt and Brooklyn, and live in Santa Monica. She’s taken up tennis in her spare time.”

“What? That’s preposterous. Gretchen and an investment banker. This is her version of hell and you’re telling me that’s it. That’s the future, and she’s _happy_ about it. What’s next? You’re going to tell me that she owns a minivan and shops at lululemon, are you?”

“She’s there every week. Oh! And she has a mommy blog. A really judgmental one about breastfeeding and peanut allergies.”

“Ew. That’s like, terrible,” Lindsay gasps. “A peanut nazi. You’re turning Gretch into the peanut nazi. Is she anti-vax, too?”

“How do you, of all people, know about the anti-vaccine movement?” Jimmy asks her.

“Hello, I was preggo for a while. I know all about the mommy fringe groups—it’s kill or be killed in there. Anyways, Edgar, continue. Or, I mean, so, what is the truth, Edgar.”

“Is that you attempt at impersonating Oprah? You’re awful at it.”

“Quiet, Jimmy.”

Edgar takes this command from Lindsay as his cue to continue. “Oh yeah. Her and Becca bonded after your breakup and they go on play dates all the time. They’ve even planned a wedding for Talulah and Wyatt, complete with a Pinterest page.”

“What? You mean to tell me that in the future Gretchen is planning on betrothing her child to Becca’s, forever entwining her life with a woman whom she hates?”

“Yeah.” Edgar says with a shrug. “You really did a number on her. She and her mom? Besties.”

“ _Besties_? That woman is poison! She puts Joan Crawford to shame and you’re telling me that Gretchen becomes best friends with her because I left?”

“Makes sense,” Lindsay says with a pained wince and Jimmy stares at her with outright disgust. “Fail at being unapologetically yourself, try to be someone else! I think I read that in Goop.”

“The Gwyneth Paltrow rag? You read that pretentious aspirational mess?”

“Yeah, totes. I read it every week when I’m not on TMZ checking the latest news.”

“Oh, and, uh, Gretchen? She eats kale now. Lots of kale. It has antioxidants. And she is really positive, like, has one of those instagrams with all the inspirational quotes and the bible references—“

“Kale? Oh god. Jimmy, you have to stop her!” Lindsay interrupts, much to Edgar’s disappointment, once again robbing him from his moment in the sun.

“Really? What you took from all of that was _kale_?”

“Kale is awful. People who eat kale are like lame pod-people. You don’t want Gretch to become a pod person, do you?”

“You just admitted to reading Goop!”

“To make fun of it!” Lindsay shrieks, folding her arms over one another in a way that both conveys the extent of her anger and presses her breasts up further. “Look, this is a full on crisis now. You dump Gretchen, she becomes a pod person and cuts us all out of her life. Admit it. Gretch is the best thing to happen to you, and for whatever weird reason, since you’re absolutely the worst, you're like, the best thing to happen to her, too.”

“She’s right, Jimmy. You’re a lot more fun when she’s around, and I don’t know if I can handle you being miserable so soon after Dorothy left me.”

“Don’t you think I know that? However, I asked and realized immediately after that we were passing the point of no return. And, should we move forward, there is nowhere left to go except toward a miserable marriage where we both start hating one another.”

“Not true. Brad and Angelina—“

“They’re divorcing. You haven’t caught that in your perusal of TMZ?”

“Oh my god, what? No! Paul blocked the website on my phone because it was bad for the baby—ooh, I should add that to my prenup trial thing.”

“What?”

“Later.” Lindsay snaps. “I know negativity is your thing and it makes you feel smart and stuff, but, you and Gretch hate almost everyone. Maybe that’s how to make love work—hate everyone else more than the person you’re with. It’s like the anti-love love thingy.”

“I did stage a murder for her. I wouldn’t do that for just anyone—“

“Exactly!” Lindsay interrupts, bobbing her head for emphasis.

“And the sex is good, even after we moved in together—“

“I know. The walls aren’t that thick,” Edgar says.

“And she did inspire my latest book, without her I might never write again—“

“Bold, if true,” Lindsay says, now imitating a sportscaster, which is disconcerting.

“And she does this thing with her nose where she scrunches it up right before she cums. It’s really weird, but I love it. I love her. All of her. Even the bad parts. _Especially_ the bad parts,” Jimmy says, grabbing at his temples as it all comes together and he realizes the depths of his errors. “But I bungled it. I left my wingman. And you never leave your bloody wingman.”

“Your wingman? But Gretch doesn’t have wings.”

“From Top Gun! It’s a whole thing from the first night when she refused to leave my apartment—and apparently she refuses to leave my heart.”

“You know what you gotta do,” Edgar says, and Lindsay smiles at him, as if they’re in on some ridiculous joke and Jimmy is the punchline.

“Oh? And what is that? What possibly could repair something that I’ve so irreparably damaged. Hell, I might as well as go to J. Crew my self and pick out her first sweater set.”

“Say you’re sorry. And mean it,” Edgar says, stressing the last part far more than necessary. Which is unsurprising as his latest foray into web comedy, he’s never had a sense of timing. 

“ _Fine_. I’ll apologize. Fat lot of good it’ll do, though.”

“You gotta try,” Edgar says, patting him on the shoulder and shooting him one of the sympathetic looks that Jimmy hates.

“Yeah, Gretch is weird like that. I’d fucking kill you, but Gretch? I dunno, you have a shot. But you gotta act quick.”

“Alright, then. So, I suppose I’ll wake up now. Goodbye Fake Edgar, Fake Lindsay. I’d say it’s been enlightening, but I’m mostly just disturbed,” Jimmy says and everything fades away into nothingness.

~*~

The world comes back together in a sharp burst of light, narrated by the erratic beeps of electronic monitors. Jimmy gasps for air, or tries to, at any rate, with the ventilator shoved in his throat. He struggles to see who else is there, making out silhouettes who rush in and out of frame. He catches a glimpse of red in the corner and thinks it might be Gretchen before falling back asleep again.

The next time he wakes the ventilator is gone. Edgar is there, dozing in the corner, a silent vigil over him. Nothing hurts and Jimmy realizes it must be morphine muting the sensation of his car wreck and the damage it’d caused. Gretchen isn’t present and he wonders if she’s been by—he’s not sure what the rules are when you leave someone within seconds of proposing.

The third time Jimmy wakes, Gretchen is there, more interested in her phone than his mortality. Her legs are slung across the chair and faint tear tracks stain her cheeks. Has she been crying? There’s some beeping that’s louder than normal and Gretchen turns toward him.

“Shit! Jimmy, you’re awake.”

“Yeah,” Jimmy croaks, his voice muted from lack of use. “You’re here.”

“Emergency contact. But, I almost didn’t—you fucking left me.”

“I did.”

“Dude! You fake a murder, drag me all around town, and then ask me to marry you. I say yes and you bail?”

“In my defense, you called us a family—“

“If you didn’t want a family you shouldn’t have asked me to marry you! That’s what marriage is, Jimmy. Two people joining their lives. A family and all the bullshit that comes along with it.” Gretchen huffs. “And then you could have had the fucking decency to not crash your car and almost kill yourself seconds after leaving me above the Hollywood sign like every bad ending to a romantic comedy written by some nineteen year-old screenwriter trying to deconstruct it.”

“I didn’t plan that.”

“I don’t care! You leave me and, like an idiot, I still can’t get away.”  
“You said we could bail at anytime. I did that.”

“That was before you fucking proposed! You propose and that’s the end of the emergency exit.”

“I wasn’t aware that we had qualifiers to our one rule,” Jimmy huffs, watching the heart rate monitor rise and fall on the display. Well, his blood pressure is up. Certainly not good for his longevity.

“You put them there! I didn’t demand that you craft my dream proposal, complete with fake bloody smiley faces and a twitter account, and then get down on one knee and ask me to marry you. I was happy with what we were. But no, you wanted more, Jimmy. You went to all that trouble and threw it all away!” Gretchen huffs. “And I thought I had one-upped you on self-sabotage, but you had to take that too!”

“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Only if you mean it.”

“I do.” Jimmy says. “I mean it. Do you know what it was like, standing there, fireworks reflected in your eyes? It was awful. Not—not awful, per se, but knowing that this might be it. This might be the happiest that we might ever be. That it’s all downhill from here. And then I heard the word family and I got scared and thought we might become my parents.”

“Oh god.”

“I know! They’re utterly miserable. I don’t want to be miserable. I want to be happy—and you, Gretchen, you make me happy. Disgustingly, cloyingly happy. Even at your worst—even with that bloody list of pros and cons, you’re wholly a pro. Possibly the only pro in my miserable existence. And I’m afraid that one day you might be a con—and then what will I have but the meaningless nothingness of life before I meet my bitter end?”

“Dude, you don’t think I’m scared? I told you before. I’m fucking terrified. But when you almost died, I realized that even if you’re a jackass I guess I want you in my life.”

“Well, that’s good, then. Perhaps we can call a mulligan, then. Redo the proposal.”

“Oh, no way, dude. I’m going to milk this shit.”

“What? That’s entirely not fair. You invited my parents and made a donation in my name to NAMBLA—“

“Whoa, whoa. Nope. You told me to mail a letter—“

“As punishment! Not immediately,” Jimmy protests meekly, only to be silenced by Gretchen’s gaze. “Alright, fine. Milk away. We only have our whole lives for you to hold this over my head.”

“Wait, we’re still doing this?”

“Of course. I had my bloody life flash before my eyes and I realized that all I want in my life is you in it.”

“What about what I want? I’m not sure I want to do this—“

“Oh, bullshit. You were my emergency contact. You could have pulled the plug if you wanted and you didn't. That means something, Gretchen.”

“Yeah, just that I don’t want your ghost haunting me for the rest of my days,” Gretchen replies, watching him through her bangs. She pauses appraising him, and he grows more nervous by the second. Maybe she doesn’t want him after all. “I’m kidding! Shit, you survived my zombie phase, I guess I can get past your daddy issues.”

“God, I love you. If I weren’t strapped to this bed I would kiss you right now.”

Gretchen leans over, pressing her lips against his. “Yeah, I love you too, idiot. Just don’t fuck it up again. Ooh, I know. Maybe we could do couples therapy with Justina. I’m running out of good heckles.”

“Oh no, I draw the line at therapy. I am perfectly well adjusted,” Jimmy objects.

“You proposed and ran. That’s like next level ding, dong, ditch, dude. Just saying,” Gretchen says with a smirk on her face that he wants to kiss, nay, fuck right off of her. God, he loves this insufferable woman.

“Fine, we will discuss it later. After I leave my sickbed.”

“Yeah, you’re in for some major PT. You broke your leg and shit. They showed me the pics. Super gross.”

Of course Gretchen would look at the photographs. Shit, if he’d died, he’s half certain she’d go to the crash site and roll in his blood in some pagan ritual to bring him back to life, or to experience the pain of his death. Her obsession with the occult is unrivaled, after all. And he loves it. He loves all of it.

“God I love you.”

“Yeah. I love you too.” Gretchen's phone beeps and she looks down at it with a scowl. "Shit. Honeynuts and Shitstain are fighting with Sam again. I gotta go stop World War III. You gonna be okay for a few hours?"

"Yeah, go. I'll be fine. Remind me later to tell you all about how Becca, Edgar, and Lindsay visited me while I was comatose."

"Wait, where was I during all of this?"

"No idea. But the three of them all fought for our relationship."

"Really? Even Becca?"

"Yeah. It was bizarre."

Gretchen's phone buzzes again. "Shit. Sam's about to release a diss tweet. I really have to go. But you're telling me all about this later."

"Of course. Let's consider it a date. I'll even share my hospital food."

"You bet you will. I gotta hear what kind of logic Lindsay tried to use." Gretchen smiles and kisses him again, her hands ruffling his hair as she separates. "Love you, fiancé."

"Gross."

"You know it."

Jimmy smiles as the door closes behind her, leaving him alone with his thoughts. _Fiancé_. The word causes a little bile to rise at the back of his throat just thinking about it, but, he’s willing to ignore it for now. They might be awful people, but they’re perfect for one another—and perhaps, as Lindsay had alluded to, maybe that’s the secret to success. Two horrible people, generally uncouth and with opinions most find socially unacceptable, falling deeply and fully for one another.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from a Pete Yorn song. 
> 
> HAPPY YULETIDE!!!!!!!!!


End file.
